Mary Grady of AVweb started an expanding dialogue with her recent opinion piece on NASA and the CAFE Foundation’s Green Flight Challenge sponsored by Google. The stimulating and varied points of view reflect what is probably floating around in the general public’s perception of “green aviation,” ranging from total ignorance of what has been done already, to confusion about what it all means, to well-honed, technically aware arguments on both sides of the issue. Her thought that electrification is, “the first step down a long and bumpy road that could take general aviation in new directions,” was reinforced with the following reflections that might be similar to those that readers of this blog often experience. “For people who fly for fun — presuming there are many of those left, it seems to be one of the fastest-shrinking segments of GA — electric airplanes are sure to appeal. They are easier to deal with, and quieter, with less vibration. A few …
No Pain in This Membrane
On September 30, the National University of Singapore announced the world’s first energy-storage membrane, with the claim that it “outstrips existing rechargeable batteries and supercapacitors,” and according to Science Daily, “Surpasses existing rechargeable batteries and supercapacitors.” The cheese-cloth appearance looks a bit like a gauze bandage, but when sandwiched between what are alternatively described as two thin metal plates or two graphite plates can hold a significant charge much greater than that of conventional batteries or supercapacitors. The material, developed by a team from the National University of Singapore’s Nanoscience and Nanotechnology Initiative (NUSNNI), and led by principle investigator Dr Xie Xian Ning, is capable of holding a “charge at 0.2 farads per square centimeter. This is well above the typical upper limit of 1 microfarad per square centimeter for a standard capacitor,” according to the University. Because energy storage in capacitors is usually measured in farads, How Stuff Works calculates the following to help us understand what that means …
Green Flight Challenge Winners
Monday, October 3 was the second day of Nobel Prize announcements, but also marked the Green Flight Challenge Expo, sponsored by Google and staged under the control tower on Moffett Field, home of NASA Ames Research Center, Mountain View, California. The four airplanes that flew in the Challenge at Charles M. Schulz Sonoma Country Airport in Santa Rosa, California were joined by Greg Stevenson’s full-size mockup of his GFC design and a Pipistrel Virus that had won an earlier NASA/CAFE Personal Air Vehicle (PAV) Challenge. Stevenson’s airplane was a reminder that there were numerous entrants that, for a variety of reasons, could not attend. There is a huge number of aircraft in the wings, so to speak, that will fill these pages in the next months and years. 20 exhibitors showed off their visions of a greener future, and three rows of tents protected exhibitors and their displays from the rain that started mid-afternoon. At about 11:00 a.m., attendees were bussed to Building …
Green Flight Challenge – Days Three and Five
As if in answer to the most fervent prayers by CAFE Foundation organizers, Tuesday, September 27 dawned as a bright, windless morning, perfect for the planned 200 -mile aerial trek that each of four teams would undertake in the Green Flight Challenge sponsored by Google. Each would fly a large, tightly-followed out-and-return loop around the Sonoma Valley, reaching the radio tower array on the peaks north of Geyserville, then returning for one of three passes (the fourth being the descent to land) over the CAFE Foundation hangar at the west end of the Charles M. Schulz Sonoma County Airport. Each would have to reach at least 4,000 feet at the end of a 17-mile climb and would need to track within one mile on either side of the Challenge course’s centerline. Pilots would need to stay on the outside edge of turnpoints, but shave their margin to within one-half mile on each pylon-type turn. To help monitor that precise flying, Steve …
Green Flight Challenge – Day Two
Monday morning, September 26, many of us had our first view of an electric airplane in flight. After the weighing team rolled Jim Lee and Jeff Shingleton’s Phoenix motorglider from the hangar onto its impound location and completed initial weigh-ins for the remaining three aircraft, the airplanes were staged for the first flying event of the Green Flight Challenge sponsored by Google. With technical inspections and weighing completed, the four airplanes lined up to check their noise levels and their ability to clear an imaginary 50-foot barrier atop a cherry picker 2,000 feet from the top of the number “9” on runway 19 at Santa Rosa, California’s Charles M. Schulz Sonoma County Airport. As each aircraft rolled out to their takeoff point, the cluster of photographers under the cherry picker focused and waited for a green flag to fall at the takeoff point. All the aircraft passed cleared the 50-foot flag, and e-Genius was judged to be quietest of the entrants …
Green Flight Challenge – Day One
Sunday, September 25 marked the kickoff of the Green Flight Challenge sponsored by Google, a NASA Centennial Challenge managed by the CAFE Foundation, with a thorough technical inspection for each entrant, followed by a weigh-in. Held at the Charles M. Schulz Sonoma County Airport, the event is an event of international importance, despite the small turnout. With only four entrants making an appearance out of the original 13 that had announced and made it through the rigorous design review, there might be cause for disappointment. Consider, though, the Berblinger competition held in April at the Aero Expo in Friedrichshafen, Germany. 36 teams signed up, 24 made it to the Expo, 13 started the course and eight finished. The GFC has a comparable start-finish ratio, with many of the same issues stalling non-starters here as in Germany: lack of funds and schedule, regulation and fabrication difficulties. Despite the dropouts, Pipistrel, Stuttgart University, Phoenix Aircraft, and Embry Riddle Aeronautical University (ERAU) managed to field teams. In a …
Pipistrel Preparing for Green Flight Challenge
Michael Coates, American distributor for Pipistrel, shares some pictures and videos of the G4, four-seat, twin-fuselage electric motorglider a “technology demonstrator” for the company and its entry in the Google/NASA/CAFE Foundation Green Flight Challenge, which starts Sunday, September 25 in Santa Rosa, California. The Pipistrel team, headed by Jack Langelann of Pennsylvania State University, is working out Hollister, California’s airport, about 70 miles south of San Francisco and 150 miles from Santa Rosa. The team expects to fly to Charles M. Schulz field on “Friday or Saturday of the this week” for the competition. Pilot Robin Reid guided the big bi-fuselage craft through its paces and brought back this in-flight video, which shows the visibility is better than one would expect – except of the other fuselage, the nose of which can be seen just under the central propeller. Coates reports, “Hollister airport has been our base for the last four weeks as we continue to extend the flight envelope …
A Seraph in the Earthly Sphere
A Seraph is a six-winged angel in the first sphere of the celestial hierarchy, and while the earthly form in Richard Ike and Ira Munn’s vision may have fewer wings, it is no less inspired. In part, it’s inspired by biomimicry, imitating nature in its forms and even its structure. The airfoil-shaped profile of the fuselage “reduce[s] drag and optimize[s] aerodynamic efficiency, the blended-wing-body and lifting body (flying fuselage) maximize lift and produce minimum drag, according to Seraph’s web site. Seraph explains, “Flight with the Seraph will be made possible by two factors, lift generated by airfoil and lift generated by vortex. The later factor is a return to a principle originally explored by Leonardo Da Vinci.” Their site further explains that, “This new field of study is called ORGANIC AERONAUTICS, or ‘Green Aviation’ (Aerospace inspired by nature). It is also a discipline of the science called Biomimicry: using nature as Model, Mentor, and Measure.” Its exo-skeletal structure emulates insect …
Klaus Ohlmann Sets New Solar Records
Klaus Ohlmann, 59-year-old soaring record holder, has set two new records in September, 2011, aboard Icare 2, Stuttgart University’s solar-powered sailplane. The 25 meter (82 foot) span aircraft weighs a mere 457.7 pounds empty, batteries, motor, propeller and solar cells adding another 152 pounds. At 805 pounds with pilot, its 25 square meters (269.1 square feet) of wing area make it a “floater” in soaring terms, and probably not the “penetrator” that a good cross-country machine needs to be. This makes Ohlmann’s two records, the latest of 38 total, all the more remarkable. Declaring his waypoints before each flight, he flew an out-and return flight of 384.4 (238.3 miles) kilometers on August 17, then topped that with a distance flight to three waypoints of 439.3 kilometers (272.4 miles) on September 10, both flights in the Haute Alps of southern France. Its designers acknowledge the limitations of Icare2’s performance. “She’s hardly the fastest bird in the skies, but its 25m wingspan and elegant …
Matters of Note for the Green Flight Expo
One humanitarian business organization that will display at the Green Flight Expo following the completion of that seven-day event uses the type of technology the CAFE Foundation espouses for carrying medicines and supplies to remote parts of the third world that otherwise do not easily permit transport of any kind. Matternet’s slogan, “Lifting the Rising Billion” refers to those living primarily in Africa and is explained in their statement of belief. “By increasing the access to reliable transportation for people living in poverty, we will enable them to find a sustainable path out of poverty. “We will connect people from geographically isolated communities to local and global markets through the Matternet.” This credo applies to poor communities throughout the world, and Matternet is committed to creating airborne supply networks worldwide. Mechanisms are simple enough, with quadrotor helicopters, much like those used by Stanford Professor Sebastian Thrun and his alumni, Nicholas Roy (now assistant professor at MIT) in their investigations of …